Maya curves - Enable in Viewport?

Torch

Hey all, does anyone know if there is method or script/plugin to get Max's curve 'Enable in viewport' function in Maya? For those who don't know, the function in max basically creates a tube with a custom thickness, etc, without having to use a nurbs circle and extrude a path along it. Would really like to know if this is possible, as it'd be a lot easier for me than converting an extruded nurbs tube to poly's and having to edit verts later. Thanks

haikai

I don't know if there's a way to do what you're looking for specifically, but you can extrude along a curve as polygons directly without having to convert from nurbs. Also, the extrusion history is powerful enough that you can go back and add more divisions by editing the profile or path curves so there's no need to edit the vertices themselves (unless there's something very specific you need from them).

You can also extrude polygonal faces along a curve for some additional functionality such as twists and tapers.

There are also a number of powerful scripts out there for extrusions and duplicating along curves.

nullfed

MoP made a script for this kind of thing:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=69325